


Plumage

by Trumpeteer34



Series: Prompt Fills [5]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Community: avengerkink, Fluff, Gen, Grooming, Hulkeye - Freeform, M/M, Massage, Pre-Slash, Wingfic, Wings, preening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 13:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/992633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trumpeteer34/pseuds/Trumpeteer34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the kinkmeme: http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/17385.html?thread=38919657#t38919657</p><p>Any/Clint: Arms-into-Wings: <i>Rather than sprouting wings from the shoulderblades, Clint's arms are his wings, which is why his upper body is so strong.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>Something happens (injury or magic?) which leads to him staying in winged form for longer than usual and he is utterly frustrated with his lack of hands. Any helps distract him.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Plumage

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own any of the named characters present. They belong to Marvel. This was written purely for fun.

Feeling slowly began to return to him, and with it a sort of drowsy coherency that allowed him to make some sense of the world beyond his closed eyelids. The more he started to wake up, though, the more Clint wanted to just return into the gentle embrace of slumber. 

_“…think he’s waking up…”_

He didn’t immediately recognize the reverberating voice, but it was familiar enough to let him relax. His eyes scrunched more tightly shut as he took stock of himself. There was what felt like a poorly cushioned mattress beneath him, and it was then he realized he was flat on his back. A slightly softer pillow was resting beneath his head, and his arms were splayed off to either side of his body.

“Clint?” the voice called him gently.

The archer’s eyelids cracked open just enough to peek at whoever it was speaking to him. When he spotted a bespectacled face standing nearby, staring intently at him, he realized who had been calling him.

Sure enough, the exhausted-looking form of Bruce Banner slowly came into focus, wearing a slightly worried expression as he stared straight back at him. Clint figured he should have been more concerned with the expression, but he was still really tired and kind of hoping he could just fall back asleep.

But when he closed his eyes again, there was a sharp reproof. _“Hawkeye.”_ He couldn’t ignore the owner of _that_ voice.

“’m up, Tasha, ‘m up,” he grumbled to the redheaded assassin nearby, and slowly tried to drag himself to awareness. He lifted an arm to rub at his face—

Instead of the fingers he expected, feathers brushed against his cheek.

Clint’s eyes snapped back open and he stared at where his hand should have been. Sure enough, he was met with the reddish brown plumage of one of his wings. He sat up without the aid of his arms with ease, abdominal muscles easily pulling his upper body upright, and stared at his right arm, currently in wing-form. A quick glance at his left revealed that both his arms were in wing-form.

He realized belatedly that he was sitting in the medical wing in the tower, and that either Bruce or Natasha had rolled over two other gurneys so that his wings could rest easily spread open. The feathers on both appendages were rustled and no longer aligned with precision. 

They should have been his arms he was staring at.

Normally, this wouldn’t have been a big deal. The last thing he remembered was gliding over the battlefield, providing the team with an aerial view of the fight. He recalled a burst of warmth hitting him square in the chest, and after that, nothing.

So he had been lying here for an indeterminate amount of time, unconscious, and hadn’t transformed back to his natural form. They should have changed back when he was out…

He focused on reverting his wings back into his arms, but the feathers did not recede.

Before he could demand to know what had happened and why he couldn’t transform, Bruce softly cleared his throat. The archer’s eyes darted to the physicist.

“One of today’s enemies managed to fire a shot of something at you during the battle,” Bruce explained quietly. “You’ve been unconscious for about three hours now. Tony and I looked at the weapon you were shot with. Whatever you were hit with, it’s temporary.”

“How temporary?” Clint asked, the words coming out a little more fiercely than he had intended.

Bruce didn’t flinch away from the harshness of the inquiry. “By our estimates, no longer than 48 hours.”

Clint felt his eyes widen, and he tried again to transform back into his normal, human, arm-ed being, but again, nothing happened. He was stuck in this form for what could be two more days.

Something must have appeared on his face, for Bruce suddenly looked slightly worried again. “Clint?” he asked softly.

Immediately, Clint felt his expression close off, and he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He got shakily to his feet, still feeling the effects of whatever had hit him running through his system. He was exhausted, his arms were starting to get sore, and he just wanted to sleep in his own bed right now.

Natasha reached out to steady him, but Clint shook her off with a grumble. “I’ve got it,” he said.

The assassin simply quirked an eyebrow at him, but otherwise remained silent. The two stared each other down for a long moment. He was vaguely aware of the physicist somewhere off to the side shifting awkwardly, but he paid the man no mind. He didn’t want to be in medical anymore, and he sure as hell wanted to be somewhere alone.

Natasha, whose secret superpower was probably the ability to read his thoughts, finally broke the hush. “Did you leave your door open?” she asked, like she already knew the answer.

She probably did, because when Clint realized the answer, he got pissed off. He had shut the door that morning, like he did every morning. 

And right now, he didn’t have a means of opening it without his hands.

He let out a frustrated noise and shot a look over at Bruce, who was trying to look busy by going over some notes on a clipboard. “Anything I need, doc?” he asked.

Bruce looked over at him, ignoring the wings in favor of meeting the archer’s eyes. “No,” he answered, “just get some more sleep.”

With that, Clint nodded and moved off with Natasha close behind. Much to his annoyance, the door to the medical room was closed, and the assassin had to open it for him. JARVIS, thankfully, automatically opened the door to the elevator and didn’t need to be prompted to raise the lift to the floor with Clint’s suite. He was hardly helpless without his hands, but it was still frustrating to be at the mercy of a doorknob. Natasha didn’t say anything about it, for which he was grateful, and she left his door ajar so he could come and go as he pleased without needing anyone to come open the door for him.

Ugh…it was going to be a long two days…

==

After sleeping soundly for the remainder of the evening, all the way through the night, and well into the morning, Clint came upon his next problem. He thanked whoever had changed him out of his uniform and into a pair of sweats, because there was absolutely _no_ way he could manage a zipper right now, and there was no way in _hell_ he was about to call someone to help him with _this._

He did his business—albeit a little awkwardly, but still successfully and with some small amount of dignity—and wrestled to get the sweats situated back on his hips. Once he had managed that and gave a small laugh of victory, he realized he was _really_ hungry.

And there came problem number two.

He glanced down at the feathery appendages at his sides, the plumage now rustled a bit more from his sleep and hurting a bit more than yesterday. His mouth drew back into a frown as he sadly eyed the feathers that he _really_ wanted to fix, and his stomach gave a grumble.

At last, he sighed and resigned himself to ask someone for help in getting something to eat. _Just_ getting something, _not_ helping him eat. He’d eat straight off the plate before he let someone feed him.

Clint cast his eyes at the mirror, taking in his rumpled reflection and the sour look on his face. His eyes went over his wings, and he spread them out to study the reflected image. A small sound of dismay escaped from him as he took in the sorry state of his wings, and he quickly folded them again, returning them to his sides.

He flushed the toilet with his foot and exited the bathroom.

==

As he made his way up to the communal floor that housed the kitchen, he made up his mind to try getting himself fed on his own before he resigned himself to defeat and asking for help. Thankfully, there were no doors that needed opposable thumbs to open, and Tony’s AI handled the elevator without needing instruction.

He was hoping that the kitchen would be empty, as it was late in the morning. Normally the group would have come through a few hours ago for breakfast, and then they were off doing their own things or training together.

He really should have known that he was just never that lucky.

As he turned the corner, he paused in the doorway of the kitchen. Seated at the table was Bruce, slightly hunched over a cup of tea and a science journal and still looking tired. The man usually did after a transformation into the Hulk, as he would usually pass out for hours afterward to sleep off the strain of the change. 

Suddenly, Clint felt mildly guilty. Bruce had neglected his own health and fatigue to help the archer while he was still passed out after the battle, and he hadn’t thanked him. “You’re up late,” he said, announcing his presence.

Bruce glanced up at the sound of another voice and noticed the archer in the doorway. His eyes darted to Clint’s arms for a second before they returned to his face. “So are you,” the physicist offered. “Were you able to sleep alright?”

Clint nodded in return and stepped into the kitchen. “Well enough,” he replied. With his foot, he drew the chair next to Bruce’s out from the table and sat himself down, careful to not jostle his aching wings too much.

He must have made a face again, for Bruce was suddenly studying him rather intently. “Do they hurt?” he asked, gesturing down at the reddish brown wings.

Instinctually, Clint drew his wings in tighter against his body, ignoring the discomfort. But when he saw nothing hostile about Bruce’s expression and realized that the man next to him was genuinely concerned, he let out a soft exhale and looked away. “They’re just not groomed properly right now,” he answered softly, sounding vaguely embarrassed, “and I _can’t_ fix them.”

The air between the two of them was silent for a long moment. Clint was positively helpless to help himself, and absolutely _loathing_ every second of this, until—

“May I?”

The archer’s head snapped up so quickly that some of his vertebrae cracked. His piercing blue-grey eyes shot straight to Bruce. The physicist was watching him closely and hadn’t moved from his position over his tea and book, but he really did look like he earnestly wanted to help. Clint’s eyes darted across Bruce’s features for a long moment.

Finally—without looking away from Bruce—he slowly lifted one of his wings away from his torso and opened it fully. His full wingspan was something to be reckoned with; even with only one wing spread, the tips of his wing’s primary feathers brushed against the wall of cabinets behind the physicist. 

Bruce, surprisingly, held his gaze for a long time before he turned to study the wing with the rumpled feathers. He slipped on his glasses and just stared for a long time, not making any movements or offering any words. Clint watched him closely.

At last, the other man slowly brought his hands up and ran them gingerly over the inside of his wing, fingers brushing lightly across coverts and main flying feathers. The gentleness shouldn’t have surprised the archer. Still, he felt touched that Bruce was being so gentle, so reverent of his wing.

“I’ve never had a chance to see your wings up close before,” Bruce said softly without looking away. His clever fingers righted one of the stray feathers, and Clint drew a quiet breath in response.

Bruce looked quickly over at Clint’s face, looking fearful that he had hurt the archer. Clint offered a reassuring smile; he had been caught off-guard by how nice Bruce’s fingers felt on his plumage. 

The scientist gingerly fixed another feather and was rewarded with another soft exhale from the archer. Bruce smiled to himself and kept his fingers lightly roving over the reddish-brown feathers, carefully straightening a vane here and tucking a feather back into place there.

While the man worked, Clint felt his eyelids lowering as he relaxed into Bruce’s treatment. The feathers on the extended wing started to fluff up, silently encouraging the other man to continue. Bruce chuckled lowly to himself, but didn’t stop. The ministrations felt wonderful. Forgotten was his hunger; all he could focus on was the gentle touch of Bruce’s fingers and how the discomfort had melted entirely away, leaving nothing but pleasant ripples coursing through his wing.

“They really are beautiful,” he vaguely heard Bruce compliment. 

He couldn’t really offer anything more than a hum in response, as Bruce began gently pulling any foreign debris he had picked up during the battle yesterday. The man was honest-to-God grooming him, and he couldn’t find it in himself to protest, not when he was feeling this good.

When the fingers drew away, Clint slowly opened his eyes back up and lifted his head (when had he bowed his head?) to look at Bruce. The physicist pulled himself up from his seat, and Clint tried not to make a noise of protest.

But when Bruce sat down in the chair on Clint’s other side and looked pointedly at him, the archer grinned lazily and extended his other wing. As the physicist started gently preening and grooming his other wing, Clint peeked at his cleaned and straightened wing. It was still poofy, and gentle waves of comfort and pleasure still rippled out from the edges of his feathers all the way back into his powerful shoulder and back muscles.

They sat in silence together, save for the occasional happy noise that would escape from Clint’s throat. He was too relaxed to feel embarrassed by such noises, and Bruce only smiled fondly each time they managed to sneak past his lips. He really liked seeing Bruce smile.

When Bruce finally finished straightening up his other wing, Clint shivered in pleasure. “ _Why_ have you been hiding such a wonderful talent?” he asked, sounding more relaxed than he could remember.

Another quiet chuckle escaped from Bruce as he stood, and he lightly ran both hands over where the base of each wing connected to Clint’s torso. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, just letting his hands massage the muscles there. Clint let out an appreciative noise and leaned forward in his seat, letting both puffed out wings relax and simply relishing the delightful touch.

“What are you hungry for?” Bruce asked after several minutes of massaging Clint’s upper back and neck.

"Who says ‘m hungry?” Clint managed to get out, just barely.

“Your actions, when you walked into the kitchen earlier,” Bruce answered easily.

Clint huffed a quiet laugh. “Fine. I’m hungry.”

“I think we’ve already established that,” the physicist quipped in a softly playful tone. He finally withdrew his hands. “What are you hungry for?”

The archer remained leaned forward for another moment after the touch was gone, and then slowly sat up. He turned his drowsy eyes to Bruce and smiled up at him. “Seriously, man, you can preen me anytime, anywhere.” 

He beamed when a light blush colored Bruce’s cheeks, and the physicist cleared his throat, looking mildly flustered. He decided to stop toying around with the scientist. “Cereal’s fine, thanks.”

A few minutes later, the two of them sat at the table, Clint happily munching on his breakfast proffered from a spoon that Bruce held up in intervals. The scientist wasn’t paying Clint much mind as he continued to read from the science journal, for which the archer was grateful. It didn’t feel so much like he was being fed, as Bruce wasn’t actively holding the spoon to Clint’s mouth. The man would simply dip the spoon into the bowl and hold it up for Clint to eat from whenever he was ready. It felt more like a team effort instead of a teammate feeding another helpless teammate. 

Then again, the relaxed feeling could have just been the result of an _amazing_ session with Bruce’s hands. 

As he took the offered cereal from Bruce’s spoon, he glanced over at the man. He nudged him gently with a wing. “Thanks,” he said around the cereal in his mouth when the physicist looked up.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Bruce gently scolded him, but there was nothing but fondness in his voice.


End file.
